Bad Boys J Ep 08 Review

With the way the last episode of Bad Boys J ended, I was expecting/hoping that they would start this episode on a serious note for once. After all, the peace in Hiroshima has been broken and an all-out gang war has been declared . . . right?

Well, you’ll get no sense of that as this episode starts. The members of Gokurakuchou are too busy with another challenge – trying to eat a humongous parfait nicknamed “The White Devil” in under 30 minutes to win a 10000 yen prize. Instead of skipping the humor in the beginning, they doubled it . . .

The guys took the parfait challenge for money towards a gift for Hiro (Hashimoto Ryosuke), who remains hospitalized. They ask Kumi to deliver the gift. Here we see what continues to be the best couple of the series – at least until the Tsukasa-Kumi thing gets on the right foot.

Finally, the talk within Gokurakuchou turns to the Yutaka issue . . .

. . . and we also see what is happening in Yutaka’s new group, which is actually led by Ogi – the rebellious former member of BEAST.

Speaking of Danno, he clearly wants to take action, but not the kind of direct action to defend his territory that the members of BEAST want to embark on.

Kumi meets with Erika (Triendl Reina), who remains at Hiro’s side. While slow, it’s one of the many well-crafted scenes in the episode.

A bit after that, we get another surprisingly good scene. First of all, it’s nice to see Tsukasa in Gokurakuchou headquarters, taking an interest in the business of the group.

But then we meet a new character named Iwa – a cop with such close ties to the group that all the members except Tsukasa bow to him.

The interactions between the cop and Tsukasa were brilliantly done for both humor and to move the story along.

From the cop, we learn some more about Yutaka’s backstory and why he had to flee Osaka.

While the BEAST second-in-command gets a call from his nemesis Ogi, who is basically taunting him . . .

. . . BEAST leader Danno decides to do some investigating of his own.

Knowing about Yutaka doesn’t automatically mean Gokurakuchou knows what to do about it.

After going over to the hospital to keep Erika from doing something silly . . .

. . . and getting a confirmation from Hiro that he wasn’t attacked by Yutaka, but by Ogi . . .

. . . they decide to attack the Ogi gang directly.

And beyond that, it’s all serious spoiler territory. How will Yutaka react to all of this? Why has he allowed himself to be used by Ogi? What really happened in Osaka?

Oh, and what about Tsukasa and Kumi?

On the positive side, for most of the episode, the scenes were solid and even delightful. The only exception was the ending. The writers got out of the Yutaka story way too easily – it could have been developed more, especially in terms of how he got stuck with the Ogi faction in the first place and with him resisting the resolution a bit more.

I’m getting tired of Tsukasa’s idealistic words somehow swaying people. It’s not just that it wouldn’t work in real life – I don’t particularly like stories that mirror real life too closely. It’s the fact that the they can’t pull off the scene, and it’s getting worse and worse. Early on, Tsukasa’s moralizing sort of worked out, but in this episode it reached a new low, seeming completely contrived. Does he have some sort of magic voice in addition to his supernatural fighting prowess?

The preview for the next episode suggests that there’s yet another demon that’s going to return to Hiroshima, but they really should have done more with this one.

2 Comments:

Yes, the beginning was a surprised. I thought they would have begin the episode with a more serious moment, especially with how the ” Akuma’ trouble was presented.

Kumi-chan/Erina scene was good. I liked it. I didn’t like the part with the cop, it seems …Too weird ? Not the scene itelf, as the character of the cop.

I was actually surprised by the fact that Yutaka wasn’t the main villain in this story. I thought his storyline would get us until the last episode …It was resolved a bit too quickly, but since like Danno he didn’t seem like he wanted to keep on fighting….

On the other side, I didn’t mind Tsukasa ‘s speech here…But I m now really curious about how the screenwriters would like us to perceive the characters relationship. According to Nika-chan’s JWEB, Tsukasa, Danno, and Hiro, shouldn’t be close at all, he seemed to imply that they shouldn’t get along actually ( he was speaking of the movie, and how much he gets along with NakaKen ad Hasshi ) and they shouldn’t be close….Whereas I don’t see any of them as close to each other, I thought they were tending toward the ” friends” at least.

If its not that, then Hiro’s Night storyline ( his loss of position and lack of interest in getting it back) doesn’t make much sense…

The fact that the Yutaka story didn’t last us longer than this was the biggest disappointment for me.

I don’t understand the relationship between the three leaders at all. Frankly, I wouldn’t be comfortable giving advice to people the way Tsukasa does to the others unless we were close friends. Does anyone really talk to people they don’t know well like that, much less enemies? I don’t understand all the goodwill between them – the whole idea of Bad Boys sort of loses its meaning when they act so civilly.

With Yutaka’s story so easily ended, there really isn’t any overarching storyline – except for the relationship between Tsukasa and Kumi, of course. I don’t think they made any particular effort with Hiro’s story, either – they just had him do what he needed to do to move each episode along. It’s all episode-to-episode with little attempt to pull it all together.

Well, at least we can hope that they end the series with a strong story.